The football adventures of Peter Miles

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From Landhof to Joggeli (FC Basel)

FC Basel were formed in 1893 and are one of Switzerland’s most successful clubs with twenty Swiss Super League/ Nationalliga A titles to their name. Only Grasshoppers Zurich with 27 have more although they haven’t won the championship since 2003. FC Basel have dominated the Super League recently, their first title did not come until 1952/53 but eight of their titles have come in the last eight seasons such has been their superiority.

They were formed after a meeting in the Schuhmachern-Zunft restaurant and one of their early captains was Hans “Joan” Gamper who went on to form FC Barcelona. From the early days FC Basel played at the Landhof stadium in Kleinbasel which still exists as a football ground with a large stand and clubhouse. The Landhof even held a few international matches for Switzerland, including a 9-0 win for England in 1909. Since FC Basel vacated in 1967 the club used it as a training ground but since the 1990’s it just been used by local sports clubs.

The club moved into the old St Jakob-Park stadium which was replaced with the current arena style stadium between 1998 and 2001. During this time FCB played their home games at BSC Old Boys’ Stadion Schützenmatte. As the stadium, designed by Herzog and De Meuron and known locally as “Joggeli”, was chosen to host six games in Euro 2008 St Jakob-Park was expanded to hold 42,500, although some seats were later removed to a more manageable 37,500. The venue also hosted the 2016 Europa League Final between Liverpool and Sevilla.

The arena is surrounded by retail outlets and the shell of the stadium is wrapped in translucent membrane which can be illuminated. It was not lit up today on a very soggy afternoon and looked, I have to say, a little uninviting from the outside. Inside though is a different story, food outlets and souvenir stalls are abundant and a very healthy crowd gathers for what is expected to be an easy win for the hosts who had already mathematically won the league.

The visitors, FC Thun, are in no mood to roll over for the perennial champions and lead 1-0 and 2-1 before Basel scored a third goal a minute from time to capture what looked to be three more points. However, Thun’s Serbian forward Dejan Sorgić spoilt the celebrations with a deserved equaliser with the last kick of the game, a goal which completely a highly impressive hat-trick.

FC Basel have that air of a well run club from top to tail, their reserves play in the third tier at the Stadion Rankhof which is also used by their official feeder team, the fourth tier club, Concordia Basel.
St Jakob Park is easy to find and most spectators catch the No.14 tram from the city centre.